Iran praises Iraqis as forcing U.S. out

Monday

Oct 31, 2011 at 12:01 AMOct 31, 2011 at 9:31 AM

TEHRAN, Iran - The war of words between Tehran and Washington intensified yesterday as Iran's supreme leader credited the "unified resistance" of the Iraqi people with having forced the U.S. military out of Iraq.

TEHRAN, Iran — The war of words between Tehran and Washington intensified yesterday as Iran’s supreme leader credited the “unified resistance” of the Iraqi people with having forced the U.S. military out of Iraq.

“Despite the U.S. military and political presence in Iraq, and Washington’s pressures on the country, all Iraq people … said, ‘No, to U.S.,’ ” Khamenei declared in a Tehran meeting with Massoud Barzani, the president of Iraq’s Kurdish region.

President Barack Obama has announced that all 39,000 combat troops in Iraq will be withdrawn by Dec. 31. Washington sought to leave some troops behind, but Baghdad refused to bow to U.S. demands for legal immunity for remaining U.S. combat forces.

The 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq ordered by then-President George W. Bush ousted Saddam Hussein, a secular Sunni Muslim and archenemy of the theocratic state in Shiite Iran. Saddam’s fall paved the way for the rise in Baghdad of a Shiite-led power bloc with close ties to Iran.

The U.S. pullout from Iraq after almost nine years has become a political issue in the United States.

Some Republicans and others have said the move opens the door for further Iranian meddling in neighboring Iraq. The Obama administration denies that the withdrawal represents a geopolitical defeat, and it has issued several thinly veiled warnings to Iran against interfering in Iraqi affairs.

“The message to Iran and everybody else that might have any ideas there is that the U.S. is going to have a presence in the region for a long time to come,” Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said last week.

Panetta’s admonitions and other declarations from Washington have been greeted with ridicule in Tehran. The Iranian defense minister, Ahmad Vahidi, said yesterday that Panetta’s comments were an effort to conceal “U.S. desperation and its failure.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s announcement last week that Washington will create a “ virtual embassy” to reach out to Iranians was denounced by Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani, as “mistaking diplomacy with a toy.”